Dallas schools to get gender equality training

Dallas schools to get equality training

DALLAS — The Dallas Independent School District has agreed to provide gender-equality training to its principals and other district officials following a U.S. Department of Education investigation into a boys-only field trip to see a movie earlier this year.

The agreement with the department’s Office of Civil Rights, reached last week, aims to prevent any repeats of the outing that would exclude students from educational opportunities based on gender.

The school district spent $57,000 on the February field trip for the district’s 5,000 fifth-grade boys to see “Red Tails,” about the legendary Tuskegee Airmen. Most girls stayed at their schools and watched “Akeelah and the Bee,” a fictional story about a girl who competes in a spelling bee. Not all saw it, though, because not all principals showed it.

“I think it’s good to have a refresher training,” district Superintendent Mike Miles told the Dallas Morning News. “I knew we had an issue with the ‘Red Tails,’ and now we are going to comply. It will be good training.”

Principals are scheduled to attend a two-hour training session in August. The district’s school leadership department will also undergo training, he said.

Emails obtained by the newspaper showed that the trip was conceived by then-interim schools chief Shirley Ison-Newsome, who was recently made an assistant superintendent overseeing a cluster of schools and given a raise. Most of the money for the trip came from a fund for an early childhood initiative, the emails showed.

The Texas Education Agency was also investigating the funds used to pay for the trip. The status of that investigation was not immediately known.